The Reeducation of Silicon Valley

This is Brian Auld's favorite moment of the day. He is a 24-year-old Stanford graduate. Auld teaches fourth-grade math, science, and English at EPA Charter, which serves 350 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The school has become a haven for East Palo Alto's striver families, particularly recent immigrants from Central America.

"What's this?" Auld asks, pointing to the toughest problem of the afternoon: 62 - (349 x 5) = ___ - 12 /3. His finger touches 62. A dozen hands fly into the air. "Six squared," Alejandra says.

"What does that mean?" Auld asks. He looks at the upraised hands and calls on the smallest, shiest girl. "Yes, Ruth?" he asks.

"Six times six," she replies. "That's 36." The class rips through the rest of the problem, one step at a time. When one child gets stuck, Auld encourages the others to help. "Whisper it to him, Wynesha," he counsels. Gradually, the fourth graders realize that what looked horribly tough can be broken into a series of simple problems -- and solved.

A half hour later, Auld declares a recess break and talks about what he's been doing. He is a more realistic teacher than he was when he showed up at EPA Charter three years ago. Auld has learned that some mothers and fathers don't come to parent-teacher conferences because they're in prison. He has learned that if he can't silence a rowdy class quickly, his lesson plan will be wasted. But most of all, he has learned that if he persists -- and shows the tiniest signs of joy when kids get it right -- the children will rise to almost any challenge.

That tough-minded optimism is exactly what Kristyn Klei wants. She is in her second year as EPA Charter's principal, and although she is all of 29 years old, she sometimes sounds as if she has been an educator since the days of Thomas Dewey. "Always teach to the top of the class," she says. The lobby outside her simple cinder-block office is decorated with plaques lauding the school's science-fair winners and top artists. "Just because our students are children of color doesn't mean we shouldn't have high expectations," she says.

EPA Charter relies on math drills, frequent spelling tests, and a no-nonsense focus on the basics that children need to do well on California's statewide tests. Last year, the school's fourth graders ranked above the national average in reading, spelling, and language and in the top quartile in math. Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders did nearly as well, while some younger grades lagged. Overall, EPA Charter's scores surged 115 points from a year earlier, as calculated on the state's 1,000-point scale.

By rights, EPA Charter shouldn't be doing this well. With an operating budget of less than $2 million a year, the school lacks funds to build its own facilities. So it makes do in a worn-out, 1960s-era school building that had been abandoned for years. Volunteers have painted bright murals on the walls and restocked empty library shelves with books. But big-ticket upgrades (like a proper cafeteria) are maddeningly out of reach. Children eat lunch outside. When it rains, they must either dart inside or hope that a concrete overhang keeps them dry.

Look harder, though, and you can find sources of strength. Parents have been brought into the school in ways that go far beyond PTAs. Some parent volunteers help the faculty during recess, while others keep order during lunchtime. Among the frequent visitors is Feliciano Villasenor, a part-time cook and custodian at an elegant hotel in Menlo Park. He is a single father who emigrated from Mexico in 1993 and speaks limited English. His five children are all at EPA Charter.

"Every evening, I gather the children in a circle around me at home," he says through an interpreter. "I tell them, If you don't get an education, you will have to work as hard as I do, and you won't make any more money. If you get an education, you will earn a lot more money. And you might not have to work so hard."

One of the deepest commitments to the school comes from 30-year-old Saree Mading, one of EPA Charter's few African-American teachers. She grew up in East Palo Alto and moved to Sacramento, where she had a comfortable teaching job and a safer home. When East Palo Alto was named murder capital of America in 1993, she shuddered. But she also felt a responsibility. "I told my husband, That's where I need to be," she recalls. So Mading moved back to East Palo Alto to teach social studies and science at EPA Charter. Her two older children are in sixth grade and first grade at the school.

Just before Christmas break, Mading presides over an awards ceremony for the school's third-annual science fair. As she hands out award certificates, she jokes, "My hand is tired! I had to sign so many of these." But she is beaming as her eighth graders walk up to get their awards. They have been junior scientists, making hypotheses, gathering months of data, and writing everything up as neatly as they could. They are a big step closer to success in the adult world.